Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club will undergo an extensive course upgrade after this week’s Joburg Open as it seeks to maintain its status as one of the most popular stops on the European Tour schedule.
The European Tour returns to local fairways for the R16.5 million tournament, with a field including defending champion Haydon Porteous, former Masters champion Trevor Immelman, 2009 US PGA Championship winner YE Yang, 2016 European Ryder Cup captain, Darren Clarke, as well as Brandon Stone, George Coetzee and Jaco van Zyl.
Chris Bentley, CEO of Royal Johannesburg and Kensington GC, says both the East and West courses are in excellent condition ahead of this week’s tournament.
“We’ve been ahead of schedule in terms of our preparations, which is great. This my fourth Joburg Open and both courses are, in my opinion, the best they’ve ever been.”
Following this week’s tournament, the championship East Course will be closed for six months for its upgrade, followed by a similar upgrade of the West Course in 2018.
The changes include new bunkers and resurfaced greens, new tees and an overall strategy to make both courses more water efficient in light of the water shortages in the country.
“We have three aims which we’re trying to achieve with our upgrades, and that’s to make the courses more challenging for the professional – not harder but more challenging – easier for the amateur and club golfer with some new tee options, and cheaper to maintain,” said Bentley.
“As a Joburg Open host, it’s just getting better and better.”
According to Bentley, the Joburg Open plays a vital role in Royal Johannesburg’s enduring appeal to the international market.
“When international guests land at OR Tambo and they want to play golf, Royal Johannesburg is their first stop. They’ve seen it on TV through the Joburg Open and that’s the course they want to play. Then they go off to the bush or wherever.
“We have an enormous amount of golfers from Europe coming through here every year. We see a real excitement from international golfers when they come here because they’ve seen the course on TV and how good it looks.”
